The Marketing Problem

I find myself thinking aboutÂ marketing a lot lately.Â  Yes, there’s a reason for it.Â  No, I’m not allowed to tell you the reason. Yes, that annoys me, too.Â  End of the day, however, I’m still thinking about marketing.

I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re splat in the middle of an economic shit-bucket.Â  That’s going to lead to less people buying books, and it’s going to lead to a lot less people taking chances on new writers.Â  Of course, this happens at a critical time in my writing career.

At the end of the day, it just means I have to advertise and market upcoming books to the best of my ability.Â  Wait, scratch that.Â  I have to do better.Â  I have to get folks talking.

See, there’s always the ads that pepper various trade publications and genre mags.Â  If you’re anything like me, you probably glance at those ads and then keep flipping pages.Â  I do believe there’s a place for them, and I’ve seen them work very well (especially if you have a Nate Kenyon-level of ad saturation), but they’re just a part of the approach.

Then there areÂ book trailers.Â  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go to youtube and run a search.Â  You’ll find plenty.Â  In fact, I think they come free with your average myspace account.Â  I liked book trailers when they were for good books by good authors.Â  Now everybody’s got one, though.Â  I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of ominous footage broken up by blurbs and back cover copy.

What do we have left?Â  There are always interviews I can hustle and attempt to land.Â  Those always help, but are they good for word of mouth?Â  Do they light a fire?Â  I want to get things burning.

I would love to do something online, an interactive experience like Year Zero’s campaign.Â  Something that big would cost a lot of money, though.Â  That’s money I just don’t have.

So maybe there’s something in the middle, some way to make it all work.

And I have ideas, fun ideas.Â  Good ideas.

I just need to get to work.